


One Foot

by Kinkri



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 15:04:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12345060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinkri/pseuds/Kinkri
Summary: Emil lugs Lalli through the snow to a small house.





	One Foot

The ice hit the shore with a jolt, as Emil scrambled to drag himself and Lalli onto shore before the waves carried the floe away again. Splashing into the ice, he sucked his teeth and felt his calves tighten from the freezing water. Clenching his teeth, he dragged lalli onto the shore, which wasn’t a whole lot warmer than the water. Despite that, Emil hauled himself and Lalli up the rocky hill in front of them, and collapsing upon the lip at the top, before another slight, grassier hill. As Emil stopped to catch his breath, he cast his gaze around. The water was empty, both of any monstrous abominations, and just about anything else, really. He looked behind him, across the landscape he’d climbed to, and saw just as much as he had looking at the water, except snowier. Nothing very encouraging.

He could use something encouraging, after all this. He hadn’t even been able to sort out his feelings from the last disaster before Lalli went and heroically made himself comatose. Didn’t even have space to be scared, just stunned. By all accounts he should still be pretty scared after nearly getting crushed by a couple tonnes of giant, but he was too worried about Lalli to think too much about the whole thing.  

Enough moping. He had a skinny Finn to get... somewhere. He still couldn’t see much through the snow, but he hoped there’d be something. They were still in the middle of an urban area, there had to be somewhere to hunker down for the night. He took a deep breath.

“Okay...” He got up and lifted Lalli up.

“We have to keep going,” and started walking up the hill into the snow.   

Even though he was grateful for how light Lalli was, it was still tough going. The snow hadn’t piled up too much yet, but the wind and the slippery wet wasn’t doing him any good. He knew if he stopped to rest in the cold wind, though, he probably wouldn’t ever get going again. He had to keep moving.   
  
  
Emil turned his head upwards and thanked every god he knew, and a couple he didn’t, when he saw the shapes of houses looming out of the gloom. They’d probably be locked, which would be a problem, if it wasn’t for 90 years of freezing every winter. The lock would probably snap easy, given any luck. He supposed he shouldn’t count on luck, given the last couple days, but he didn’t have much else to go on. Hoisting Lalli closer to his chest, he continued, with renewed vigor. Looking forward to a warm fireplace almost drowned out the rest of his turbulent emotions.

He had to pull the door pretty hard, but he was right about the lock. Came right off, and the glass shattered too. Dragging Lalli inside, Emil lay him down on the floor, trying to find a softer spot on the hardwood for him. Pretty difficult, they don’t call it hardwood for nothing.

 

“Wait here! I’ll make sure this place is safe!” he said to Lalli, somewhat pointlessly. He proceeded to peek around corners and under beds, which took him back to when he was a little kid, both from checking under the bed for monsters, and jumping and tensing whenever he saw a strange shape obscured by the increasing darkness. Eventually, after several nerve-wracking minutes, he ran out of things to scare himself with and went back to Lalli, who had dutifully obeyed his orders and not moved an inch. With the area secure, he started ripping apart select areas of the house, collecting wood for the fire he wanted and Lalli probably needed. Using his his cleanser training, he carefully splashed some firelighter all over the pile of wood, and lit it up. Moving Lalli to a rug near the fire, Emil was once again reminded of his childhood as he moved the couches around the fire and draped a blanket over them, creating a warm little den for him and Lalli.

 

After hanging up some of their clothes to dry, he had a second to rest, the adrenaline running out leaving him feeling fairly scared, and pretty lonely. The wind was making strange noises outside, and the house was creaking, cracking, and moaning all around him. The windows were too cloudy to see much outside, and the flickering shadows kept playing tricks on him, adding to his anxiety. Even though sitting next to a comatose Lalli wasn’t much different than sitting next to an awake Lalli (they were equally verbose), his presence still didn’t do much to reassure Emil. He realized he had no idea where the others were, and that he didn’t have much of an idea of where to go or what to do next. At least he had all night to figure it out, couldn’t do anything until the next morning. He wished Lalli was awake, to do some magic and make things better, or talk to Reynir, or something. He didn’t want to think about how long it took him to wake up last time.

Giving Lalli one last glance, Emil muttered to himself;

“Maybe tomorrow morning you’ll be awake...” before closing his eyes and drifting off.  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> some self-indulgent stuff cos I love this song and liked this sequence, so thought this would be fun. it was. This WAS a songfic for One Foot by Walk the Moon, hence the title, but I got a copyright strike, so I cut it down.  
> 


End file.
